visiting another linux website I came across the following as someone's sig

This is my signature! Not a post aimed at any one person....A quick English lesson:1. "Your" is possessive. "You're" is a contraction of "You are". Why do otherwise intelligent people make statements like "Your running the wrong program"? It's not hard.2. "There" refers to something like "over there". "Their" is possessive of them. "They're" is "they are".3. Plurals DO NOT HAVE APOSTROPHES. Yes really: no "dog's", no "cat's", no "program's" and definitely no "carrot's"4. Try punctuating occasionally. It makes your question easier to understand and means I'm more likely to try to answer it. I'm probably not the only one.

and do you know what? He is right! No names no pack drill

*oh dear can't even proof read my own postings

Last edited by towy71 on Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Has anyone else read 'Eats shoots & Leaves'? It really does turn you into an apostrophe Nazi. I was bad enough before reading it, but now just the merest whiff of the 'greengrocer's apostrophe' is enough really get my goat.

"Joe Bloggs met Andy, John and I on .... "or"Joe Bloggs met Andy, John and myself on .... "Should be "Joe Bloggs met Andy, John and me on .... "

Please don't ask me what I think about "And I was like ... ", which all the kids use these days.

However, as my niece often tells me, no one bothers with grammar now. She says as long as people understand what you mean that's all that matters.

Actually, people do bother with grammar. It's just that it's changing. "Like" is a way of introducing an adjectival phrase, or even an entire sentence used as an adjectival phrase, as in "And I was like 'That's totally not so!'", meaning "I denied it strongly". Personally, I think that the old-fashioned way of saying this lacks style, but that's a matter of preference.

And I think the "I met with..." has a slightly different nuance that "I met...". Again, that may be just me.

But I'm totally with you on the other examples. Particularly the use of "I" for "me", whcih I hate as pretentious nonsense.

I knew it - I just knew it! As soon as I saw my post I thought 'oh bugger, someone's going to pick up on that now'. That's another problem with being a pedant - You set yourself up for a fall every time you open your mouth (or write something down).

On the changing of language, I think there's a difference between it's natural evolution and the bastardisation of it, as implemented by managers. Why do we now 'transition' things rather than 'move' them? Why do we consider doing things differently 'going forward' at all? We're not going to do things differently in the past are we? Apparently there are a number of 'human requisitions' in our company now - not job vacancies. To quote Terry Wogan(!), 'Is it me?'

But I'm totally with you on the other examples. Particularly the use of "I" for "me", whcih I hate as pretentious nonsense.

Pretentious yes, nonsense no. The correct term when referring to yourself (I have no intention of starting talking about myself as oneself ) in that context is in fact I. Not that it matters because everyone knows what you mean whether you say me, i, yours truly or anything else.

Funny though, most people know the correct grammar but don't use it. My grandma used to label it as laziness but I think in reality its just times changing. 20 years ago the kids wouldn't have dreamed of calling me "blood" or even bruv but I hear it all the time now, and it really really gets my goat!